OPINION
By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS
The tragic June 20 slayings of two Jesuit priests in the Chihuahua town of Urique has shone the global spotlight on Mexico’s growing crisis of violence and organized crime.
But while these appalling murders are a clear example of the blanket impunity with which drug cartels and other organized crime groups operate under the leftist administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), they are only the tip of the iceberg.
According to official government records, on Wednesday, June 22 — just two days after the priests were brutally gunned down — a total of 91 people were murdered in Mexico during a 24-hour period.
Based on data provided by Mexico’s Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), Wednesday was the most violent day of the year so far (and the operative phrase here is “so far”), with 19 people murdered in Jalisco, 12 in Nuevo León, 10 in Guanajuato and six in Morelos, with the rest sprinkled across the country.
Meanwhile, López Obrador continues to tout his inhumane policy of “hugs, not bullets” for mass murderers and coddling the Sinaloa Cartel’s most deadly assassins.
“We are not going to change our strategy,” he insisted when confronted by the media during his Thursday, June 23, press conference about the priests’ murders and Mexico’s spiraling crime rate.
So why is AMLO so pigheaded about continuing his soft-on-crime policy?
Obviously, hugs are not working to bring down the incidence of violence.
The facts — and even AMLO’s own “other data” fabrications — bear out that truth.
But for an autocratic dictator who wants to destroy the last vestiges of democracy in Mexico, concentrate his unilateral power and line his pockets (and those of his family members) while turning a blind eye to criminals (and the suffering of their victims), a cozy relationship with drug lords makes sense.
As the old saying goes, birds of a feather…
Mexico, under López Obrador, is now, simply put, a criminal state, and it is headed by the biggest criminal of all.